Fisher

Today is Tim Geithner's last day as Treasury Secretary. Below are some quotes from various exit interviews and recaps conducted with the former NY Fed president. We provide our succinct annotations to some of his answers.

On January 22, 2012, candidate François Hollande called banks the “enemy.” Now you’d think he is being tutored by Jamie Dimon.

We have discussed Dallas Fed's Richard Fisher's money-where-his-mouth-is perspective on the world before and the (sadly) non-voting member is among UBS' Art Cashin's most respected and candid of the FOMC. A glance through the transcripts that Art highlights below should both make readers sick at the constant pollyanna-ish nature of Fisher's comrades and perhaps more confident that his insights will be listened to more astutely 'the next time' as he noted at the time "No amount of rewriting of history will exonerate us". Once again, after reading these transcripts, do we really believe that central bankers are omnipotent? or incompetent?

“Here we go again”

“Repression” is what Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher called “the injustice of being held hostage to large financial institutions”

Last week we introduced our readers to the BIS' Head of Foreign Exchange and Gold, Benoit Gilson. As this week's induction into the FleeceBook hall of fame of faceless individuals behind the scenes whose fingers are on all the relevant buttons, we present to you Michael Cross, Head of Foreign Exchange, and Executive Director for Markets, at the Bank of England, a role which with the arrival of the BoE's new Goldman leader will become quite crucial in the coming weeks as the race to debase finally crosses the English Channel and it is cable's turn to crash and burn against all other currencies.

Presenting Dave Collum's now ubiquitous and all-encompassing annual review of markets and much, much more. From Baptists, Bankers, and Bootleggers to Capitalism, Corporate Debt, Government Corruption, and the Constitution, Dave provides a one-stop-shop summary of everything relevant this year (and how it will affect next year and beyond).

• IMF Demands Partial Default for Cyprus (Spiegel)
• Boehner's 'Plan B' Gets Pushback (WSJ)
• Beijing criticises US ‘political checks’ (FT)
• White House Said to Tell Business Groups Talks Stall (BBG)
• NYSE tries to get hitched again: IntercontinentalExchange in talks to buy NYSE (Reuters) -> N-Ice coming?
• Greece faces ‘make or break’ year (FT)
• Fed rejects idea of consensus forecasts, "maybe forever": Fisher (Reuters)
• Rajoy Drives Spanish Revolution With Low-Cost Manufacture (BBG)
• Italian Senate Set for Budget Vote Before Monti Resigns (BBG)
• BOJ Loosens With Pledge to Review Inflation Objectives (BBG)
• Bowing To Abe, BOJ To Review Price Goal (WSJ)

The Fed is set to become considerably more dovish in 2013 and beyond as Evans and Rosengren become voting members. It seems unlikely that any new 'Bernanke' would drastically alter the Fed's path; and so we present the 'Doves' path to prosperity (in nominal terms). As BofAML notes, "More immediately, the doves largely support the idea that policy should be kept easy “for a considerable time” after the recovery is underway. Market participants thus should be cautious not to overreact to better near-term data: the Fed isn’t likely to turn notably more hawkish any time soon."

We face one of the deepest crises in history. A prognosis for the economic future requires a deepening of the concepts of inflation and deflation. Inflation is a political phenomenon because monetary aggregates are not determined by market forces but are planned by central banks in agreement with governments. Inflation is a tax affecting all real incomes. Inflation is a precondition of extreme deflation: depression. Should in fact the overall debt collapse, there would be an extreme deflation or depression because the money aggregate would contract dramatically. In fact the money equivalent to the defaulted debt would literally vanish. It is for this reason that central banks monetize new debt at a lower interest rates, raising its value. All the financial bubbles and the mass of derivatives are just the consequence of debt monetization. How will this all end? In history, debt monetization has always produced hyperinflation. In Western countries, despite the exponential debt a runaway inflation has not yet occurred. Monetary policy has only inflated the financial sector, starving the private one, which is showing a bias towards a deflationary depression. Unfortunately governments and banks will go for more inflation. As history teaches, besides money the freedom of citizens can also be the victim.

• Egypt protests continue in crisis over Mursi powers (Reuters)
• Greece hires Deutsche, Morgan Stanley to run Greek voluntary debt buy back, sources say (Kathimerini)
• Executives' Good Luck in Trading Own Stock (WSJ)
• Hollande Presents Mittal Nationalization Among Site Options (Bloomberg)
• Eurozone states face losses on Greek debt (FT)
• Spain's rescued banks to shrink, slash jobs (Reuters)
• EU Approves Spanish Banks' Restructuring Plans (WSJ)
• At SAC, Portfolio Managers Are Treated Like Stocks (BBG)
• China considers easing family planning rules (Reuters)
• European Court to Rule Over ECB’s Secret Greek File (BusinessWeek)
• And another top tick indicator: Asia Funds Buy London Offices in Bet Volatility Is Past (Bloomberg)
• Harvard Doctor Turns Felon After Lure of Insider Trading (BBG)
• Zucker Is Lead Candidate to Head CNN (WSJ) - it's not true until CNN misreports it
• Iran "will press on with enrichment:" nuclear chief (Reuters)

• OECD slashes 2013 growth forecast (FT)
• Fiscal Cliff Compromise Elusive as Congress Returns (Bloomberg)
• China’s PBOC Chief Search Spurs Focus on Finance Regulators (Bloomberg)
• Elected, but Still Campaigning (WSJ)
• Pentagon Readies Options for Afghanistan Force After 2014 (Bloomberg)
• Greece Wins Easier Debt Terms as EU Hails Rescue Formula (Bloomberg)
• Monti presses Cameron for EU referendum (FT)
• Welcome, Mr Carney – Britain needs you (FT)
• Argentina seeks halt to $1.3bn debt order (FT)
• Asean chief warns on South China Sea disputes (FT)
• South Korea Tightens FX Rules to Temper Won Surge (WSJ)

Greece? Sorry, what’s with Greece? French downgrade. Unexpected, but then again not that much. So what? Fiscal Cliff? As no one speaks about it, it can be ignored. Risk? If it doesn’t fall, it has to rise.

"Rise To The Occasion" (Bunds 1,43% +2; Spain 5,7% -9; Stoxx 2518 +0,4%; EUR 1,282 +10)

While we largely enjoy Dallas Fed's Dick Fisher hawkish, non-conformist thinking at the FOMC, and his willingness to come up with amusing cartoon names to explain the Fed's monetary policy (we are currently on Toy Story, and specifically Buzz "To Infinity and Beyond" Lighyear), we certainly do not miss when even said faux Fed bad cops telegraph hypocrisy so gruesome it shows demonstrates beyond a shadow of a doubt just how fake the facade of the Fed's "contrarians" truly is. To wit:

• FISHER SAYS U.S. LAWMAKERS HAVE BECOME `PARASITIC WASTRELS'

Riddle us this, Dick: just who is it that enables the US Lawmakers to fund trillion dollar deficits year after year at less than prohibitive terms, and more importantly, who is it that since 2009 has monetized virtually all 10 Year and longer gross issuance, thereby allow Congress to be a parasitic wastrel. Would you call that someone a "Wastrel enabler"?

Will Congress go over the fiscal cliff?  Yes, we've been going for decades, really since the social unrest of the 1970s.